Many {{MMORPG}}s have monsters that are infrequent spawns with [[RareRandomDrop rare items]]. In fact, the rarity of items is where much of the replay value comes into play. If all one had to do was just go to a shop NPC to buy every item, people would quit once they got bored of said items.

But sometimes, an item is ''so'' rare, ''so'' irreplaceable, and ''so'' iconic that it causes otherwise rational people to do horrible things. Indeed, with the uncertainty of getting it and the high competition both within and without a guild, many people resort to downright Machiavellian tactics. People will backstab, undermine, and do nasty things to try to secure it for themselves. People will abuse game mechanics, leading to excessive use of cheat programs. People will try to PlayerKill those that pose a threat to them getting it. Indeed, very few guilds can have this item in their treasure pool without all hell breaking loose. Expect NinjaLooting, loot sniping, and a ''ton'' of arguments about who deserved it.

There are a couple criteria for an item to fall under this trope. First, it has to be extremely rare. At best, maybe two can drop per month total for an entire server. It has to be something that is ''[[PowerEqualsRarity the]] [[InfinityPlusOneSword best]]'' for a particular class/playstyle, going well above and beyond other options. If you can't define a player based on whether or not they have it, it most likely doesn't count. It has to be something that drops from a world spawn, leading to heavy competition from other groups. And finally, it has to cause a ton of drama. Typically, the negative actions that players partake in to get this item will overrule any positive benefit the item gives. While the other rules can be stretched, this is required.

Sometimes, this is intended as part of the game experience (where it is often referred to as loot ''tension''), suffice it to say, this is generally considered bad game design.

Compare ArtifactOfDoom and McGuffin, fictional plot devices that share many similar properties. See also AppleOfDiscord, when the Loot Drama plagues a previously cohesive guild or relatively peaceful player base.----!!Examples:

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'': Ridill is a sword usable by six jobs that has a frequently occurring chance of additional attacks in a given attack round. It is dropped by Fafnir, a "notorious monster" on a 21-to-24-hour spawn timer (except every 4-10 days, when something else spawns in his place). The drop rate on Ridill is hard to quantify with a percentage, but exceptionally low; The "average" estimate is about 5%. And it is the source of a vast majority of the drama in the game. There are also several other items that actually have lower proliferation rates, but due to their specialized and not-so-glorious benefits, don't really cause as much drama.** A fitting coincidence is that in the original Fafnir myth, one of his items (Andvaranauts as opposed to Ridill) pretty much corrupted people into being greedy assholes. How apt.** Some servers had this compounded even further by groups dedicated exclusively to hunting Fafnir specifically to sell the drops. While exceptionally rare, it's somehow even more insulting than the cookie-cutter cheater linkshell because at least they ostensibly care about their own advancement instead of exploiting the game for money.** Worse than Ridill, but less infamous, is the Defending Ring. It's one of the most powerful items in the game, reducing all damage the wearer takes by 10%. A notorious monster named Behemoth only spawns once every 21-24 hours. King Behemoth will randomly spawn instead of Behemoth starting 4 spawns after King Behemoth's last death (so he takes 4 days until as long as he feels like to spawn). King Behemoth drops the Defending Ring, but only an estimated 7% of the time. Assuming a flawless 4 days for each King Behemoth, it's about ''two months'' before this ring will statistically drop. Demand is so high that players winning it from the yearly staff-run in-game lottery (having chosen it over, among other things, more money than most players would ''ever'' need) are almost universally derided.*** Assuming 60 days and the perfect one kill every 4 days, if the same person kills King Behemoth every time, they have a 2/3 chance for that ring to have dropped at least once. So, two months, and there's still a 1/3 shot of never getting it at all.* In ''EveOnline'', it's not so much that the ''owning'' of a rare ship causes drama, it's the desire of everyone else to want to blow it up and get credit on the kill mail. Because Eve is a single server, rare ships destroyed in combat are LostForever. A few different kinds of ships fit this trope:** Titans are the largest and (with their WaveMotionGun weapons) debatably most powerful ships in the game, with a resource and time requirement that can only be put up by the largest alliances. And the largest alliances are always fighting each other. Blowing up titans in fleet battles is almost routine now, but oh the drama when someone in an alliance turns traitor and ''steals'' one. Or the time when Goonswarm found and killed a "baby titan" that was almost finished with construction (they take a month to build).** Limited edition rare ships include unique faction ships such as the Raven State Issue, or Tempest Tribal Issue, which were handed out as rewards for player tournaments. They are now nearly priceless, as some have been destroyed, and the owners rarely entertain buy offers. Due to their value, these ships are never actually undocked or used, being owned by collectors of unique items, despite the Megathron Federate Issue and Raven State Issue being the most powerful battleships in the game. And in the realm of indescribably valuable is the Apocalypse Imperial Issue. There used to be four. Now there is one. In the entire universe. No more will be made. It's been fought over, killed for, and stolen many times. And the current owner refuses to even host showings of it. Frigate class examples include the Gold Magnate (exactly one was given out as an event prize. It has since been destroyed in [=PvP=] combat and is now LostForever) and the Silver Magnate (given out at the same time as the Gold. Although originally more numerous, many have also been destroyed, so there are only 3 or 4 estimated to still exist.)** On a different note, Capital ships (dreadnoughts and carriers) as well as supercapitals are not allowed into high security space and are unable to be built there or flown in. Originally, when capitals were first introduced, they were allowed to be built in all security levels for a brief time. During this time, several carriers and at least one dreadnought were built, with some remaining. There are several carriers around in various systems, but only one dreadnought remaining (it's called the Veldnaught and spends all its time mining Veldspar). The drama came when a GM, ignorant of the GrandfatherClause, moved the ships into low-sec, and a flamewar ensued over whether they should be moved back or their "special" status discarded - the owner of the Veldnaught is something of an ''Eve'' celebrity). They were moved back under the condition that they could never be used for combat.* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' attempts to avert this by making item drops are on a player-to-player basis: the item a player sees are only visible to (and obtainable by) them, so players won't have to argue and fight over loot. However, this can still pop up, since the game broadcasts to other players in an instance when one player finds a rare drop.* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' has ''several'' items of that kind, which have their own rarity category, called Legendary. Without exception, these weapons require weeks of raiding efforts to be created, and just deciding who in the guild should get the item can be cause for much drama. Some epic drops in normal dungeons also fall into this category, such as an extremely rare mount ([[BraggingRightsReward which only looks unique and doesn't offer any improvements over normal epic mounts]], mind you).** At least this type of items in ''WorldOfWarcraft'' all come in instanced dungeons, so the drama is at least limited to those who participated in the raid. One can only imagine the howling terror of a legendary item on a world spawn in that game.** Prior to a fix that gave all hunter pets of a given type the same attack speed, a rare spawn called "Broken Tooth" was particularly desired as a hunter pet for its 1-second attack speed, the fastest of any trainable creature. This creature, which roamed randomly throughout a remote region of the game, had an eight-hour respawn timer and more often than not was killed by non-hunters who didn't recognize its significance.*** Uber rare pets have returned, with the Spirit Beasts (a glorified cat with swirly spots and evil glowing eyes -- oh, and it casts Moonfire as a normal attack). Again, spawns once a day in a random position in a rather large area of the game and is rare as all getout. Oh, and he's [[spoiler: ''invisible'']].** The last Legendary item released before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was Thoridal, the Stars' Fury, a Legendary bow. There's only one class that deals damage primarily through ranged weapons: The Hunter. However, the bow curiously lacked a class limitation to them. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before one was looted to a Rogue - who'd use it as little more than a [[StatSticks minor stat boost]] - over two Hunters that could have used it. The fallout from the drama that caused broke out of even the server it happened on, with the entire ''WorldOfWarcraft'' community now knowing of it. ''That'' is the power of Loot Drama.** There's also now a rare (Possibly the rarest creature in WoW) that drops ''itself'' as an in-game flying mount. The approrpiately-named Time-Lost Proto-Drake has multiple paths it can patrol along, but nobody's followed it for very long because it's now well-known enough that most servers have a few people in its most commonly-seen areas at all times. In addition, the loot is bind on pickup. The monster itself is quite weak, any character at the level cap could solo it with their eyes closed, so its a case of blind luck or dogged persistence.*** Speaking of mounts, there are also several very rare mounts that drop from instanced bosses. Due to their exceeding rarity, sometimes dropping less than once in every hundred runs, it was not uncommon to see groups, raids, and even guilds fracture if greed got the better of somebody. Game Masters have been called in to punish those who steal these mounts, and they do so.**** Back in vanilla, multiple guilds fell apart due to infighting over who would get the incredibly rare drop of Baron Rivendare's Charger. Using it in public was also a known cause of the owner getting hounded and harassed by less lucky players. Yes, you could feel loot drama from players ''who didn't even play with you.'' In addition, it should be noted that the Deathcharger is merely a slight recolor of the Forsaken epic mount, meaning that virtually any member of the Horde could get an almost identical one simply by getting exalted with the Undercity.** Now it's the pets that are causing drama. After adding pet battling in ''Mists of Pandaria'', players are combing Azeroth for rare pets to GottaCatchThemAll, so naturally the rarest ones are highly prized and cause frustration and resentment from people who can't get one. Pets that drop off bosses are at least tradeable, so anyone who misses one can usually buy one from the auction house; the ones caught in the wild are not, and anyone who wants them has to catch it themselves.*** First it was the Minifernal and the Scourged Whelpling, pets that showed up in one area, and had a long respawn timer. This was exacerbated by the newly implemented Cross Realm Zones (or CRZ) which took players from low-pop realms and jammed them onto the same server, meaning players weren't just competing with other players on their realm, but several other realms for those rare pets.*** The next rare is the Unborn Val'kyr, who spawns all over Northrend, in very specific places, making her hard to search for by jumping point to point, and other players are likely camping the spots. Worse, the Val'kyr has an ability called Haunt that takes her out of battle for 4 rounds where it cannot be caught, and if it's the last pet in the fight, Haunt is a self inflicted KO, [[SpitefulAI so you can't catch her at all]].*** Starting with the Midsummer festival is the Qiraji Guardling, the last pet needed for the Kalimdor and World Safari achievements for many collectors. Found in one area, on a long respawn timer, and is only available during the summer, so everyone collecting pets is rushing to catch one, and the Scarab Gate is often crowded with players looking for one.** Raid-focused guilds often have a strange inversion of the trope: the proliferation of "Dragon Kill Point" or DKP systems have caused grief over people ''not'' wanting items. DKP are an unofficial sub-economy whose simplest forms consist of "Participate in raids, earn DKP, trade in DKP for the 'right' to roll on specific bits of gear." The grief comes from particularly stringent guilds who use convoluted methods of calculating DKP that often means "You're one of these three pre-approved builds or you'll never be good enough to get anything", make no allowances for any reason, and then insist that ''all'' rolls require DKP spending, even if it's a case of "Nobody wants/everyone already has that piece of crap, just greed roll or give to the Enchanter to disenchant and be done with it." This leads to major quarrels about "wasted loot" or an excessive amount of time spent determining simple drops. Such systems rarely last long, thankfully, except for guilds whose entire mindset is [[SelfImposedChallenge proving how hardcore a player they are]].*** Other guilds have broken because one player who ''could'' have used the loot was "ineligible" to roll on it because they lacked the DKP. Usually the guilds that used such a system for more than a few months forbade this, but other guilds weren't nearly as rude enough to toss loot away that someone could use. * ''GaiaOnline'' has the Angelic Halo. It was one of the first Monthly Collectables released and it's virtually impossibly to get one. The admins and artists know this and love to screw with the users about it. Several cheap alternatives have been released because of the item's rarity.** [[RareRandomDrop Chance Item]] prizes, usually the 'cute animal mascot' types, fall into this more often than not; the most notorious of them are Lucky the Cat and Jet the Kitten Star, both of which are among the most expensive items in the game due to their rarity and have sparked many an angry rant.* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' has this with the unlockable weapons and to a greater extent hats. With the RandomDrop system, people leave their computers on and wait until they get items.** This caused Valve to remove hats and other items from people who farmed items by idling with external programs. Valve rewarded players who didn't do this by giving them a halo hat as proof. However, this caused even ''more'' drama where people made fun of people who got the halos or even banned people from their severs outright from having it, likely being the reason said item was later given to everyone else as well.** The best example of this yet in the game is the Golden Wrench. There are only 100 of them in the whole game. That's right, 100 total for a million+ players. To get one you had to be either super-lucky or knew the mechanics of how to obtain it during a three-day period. As for the drama-causing part... Well, [[http://www.toptiertactics.com/2010/07/goldengate-the-engineer-update-scandal/ here is a blog post from an important person in the various Golden Wrench charities explaining what the rage was all about.]]*** It's gotten to a point where even those who obtained the wrench ''legitimately'' will not use it and will set their player profiles to private so ''no one can find out'' and hound them in public for being so-called cheaters. One of the "lucky" players who got a wrench has even changed his account name to "The Wrench Is Cursed."*** Even better, anywhere from 25 to 33 Golden Wrenches have been intentionally destroyed. Some destroyed their Wrench for charity; others destroyed their Wrench purely for the "lulz" of watching thousands of people rage at them for simply destroying an incredibly valuable item.*** Also, for those who don't know, destroying a wrench will alert ''every'' server, at the same time, to the destruction. Anybody who plays the game at the time of destruction will instantly be aware of this removal. Normally only the server the player is on will get a message about a player's inventory.* While not nearly as rare as some of the other items on this page, the [[http://camelot.allakhazam.com/item.html?citem=13278 Cloudsong]] from ''VideoGame/DarkAgeOfCamelot'' caused a player to have an [[ClusterFBomb absolute meltdown]] when another player picked it up. That meltdown, featured on [[http://wowseriousbusiness.ytmnd.com/ this YTMND]], became a popular [[MemeticMutation internet fad]] for quite some time.* [[CosmeticAward The Isolator Badge]] in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. To obtain this badge, you had to defeat 100 Contaminated Thugs that were only found in the tutorial zone. If you bypassed the tutorial, or you got bored fighting that type of thug (and it is really boring), this badge was LostForever. The developers eventually responded to complaints by adding... the Infected Thug enemies, who act and look exactly the same as Contaminated but don't count towards the badge.** After ''more'' complaints, they finally added a spawn point. For ONE Thug. Every two hours. In a high-level [=PvP=] zone. And since villains can't get this badge and thus had nothing to lose, it was easy for {{Griefer}}s to just kill the Thug (it's still level 1!). And then stomp the non-PvP ready hero who was just here for the badge.** After '''''more''''' complaints, this was finally rectified with the Flashback system, where you get to replay the tutorial mission and regain the badge.* Unusual in that this isn't an online game, certain {{Pokemon}} may sometimes be this rare due to the difficulty in getting them. Especially Pokémon that are given out at Nintendo events. This goes doubly for Pokémon that are only available through these events like Mew and Celebi. This also applies to Pokémon that have special moves they wouldn't normally learn (such as Ralts with Wish) or shiny Pokémon (which are only encountered once in a blue moon.)** This has gone down a bit as far as shiny Pokémon are concerned, as most can now be obtained through chaining, a method which allows you to get shinies more reliably. Granted, it's still hard to get one, but they're much more common now.** This is also why there's very little stigma to using a GameShark to access the inaccessible, especially among those who have little to no chance of gaining one officially.* ''[[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} Diablo II]]'' had an extreme problem with Loot Drama because every item, bar none, dropped straight on the ground; if your group didn't have strict looting discipline (hint: it didn't), they subsequently went to whoever was fastest at snatching them up. ** One rare item, the ''Stone of Jordan'', which gives + 1 to every skill. This was actually used as currency in the online aspect of the game for rare goods. Before any crackdown on selling in-game items for real money, an eBay auction was selling about 50 of these for $300. Since the crackdown, perfect gems are used as the surrogate currency.** ''[[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} Diablo II]]'' in general is notorious for this. The expansion added runes and runewords; runes are special socketable items with a range of abilities, depending on the rune. Rune drops aren't determined by [[LuckStat magic find]] so the probability of finding any (much less the one you want) is very low. Runewords are specific combinations of runes in a specific item which when created, imbue the item with increased stats, ranging from useful to [[GameBreaker Game Breaking]]. Runes have supplanted the ''Stone of Jordan'' as the ingame with its own exchange and pricing system to boot. Rampant [[GoodBadBugs duping]] of runes has actually caused ''inflation''.** For reference: There are 33 runes, and the top 8 are extremely rare, having drop chances of one in tens or hundreds of thousands. To make a runeword, you'll need a specific combination, up to ''5'' of the "high" ones. And, sometimes, finding an item good enough to put these beasts in is going to be just as difficult.** ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' has a different system: loot drops are exclusive to each player, and you can't even see what other players get unless they drop it, which makes the loot visible to everyone. This doesn't ''completely'' eliminate Loot Drama, but it does mean that if you do get some coveted item, the rest of the party won't know about it unless you rub it in their faces.* ''RagnarokOnline''. Almost every monster/boss/etc. in the game has a chance to drop a card, which can be compounded into compatible equipment types to give special benefits to their users. Some cards are vital in the creation of some classes, while others can be flat-out gamebreaking. The bottom line, however, is that the base drop rate for most cards is 1/10000. Ten-flipping-thousand. But hey, at least combat is quicker in RO than other [[MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame MMORPGs]], right? Right?** Add to that the fact that all the minibosses and boss characters had spawn times of between 1 hour for the weaker ones to 24 hours for the big [=MVPs=] (the game's equivalent of bosses), some spawned randomly from a pool (Rekenber Biolabs) and some required an entire guild to run a quest just to get one to spawn, nevermind try [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard defeating it]] (Thanatos).** To add to the drama, all drops were lootable by ANYONE after a fixed amount of time, if the original player who killed it couldn't pick it up in time. This has resulted in some serious drama where a passing bot or passing player could loot a valuable card in the mess of loot when the exclusive loot rights timed out. And said owner of bot or player would then try to sell it back to the original owner.* The Hockey Stick of Furious Angry Rage in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' could probably have been considered to cause LootDrama at one time, though other additions (mainly other, similarly powerful, more accessible sources of extra monster level) have since made the hockey stick's benefit more marginal. When equipped, the hockey stick would cause any monster the player was fighting to become stronger by 30 levels (which effectively means + 30 to the monster's attack and defense), with the benefit of + 6 XP per battle. The + 30 did not add to the monster's HP (though that was [[{{Nerf}} fixed]] later), and its other stats are nearly moot if you can KO it in one hit. Also, up to 3 hockey sticks could be equipped to take up all 3 accessory slots, and their effects would stack to a whopping + 18 XP per battle. (The toughest monsters in the game back then had a base XP value of 36.) In short, they were [[GameBreaker extremely useful]], and nothing else in the game at the time came close in effectiveness. Meanwhile, hockey sticks are also an Ultra-Rare. The Ultra-Rare mechanic itself is unknown, but it is suspected that only a certain number of Ultra-Rares (around 2-4) can drop across the entire game per day. Add that to the fact that the hockey stick only drops in a zone that players usually have no reason to bother visiting and can only be visited by ascended players who are a Mysticality sign in their current ascension, and the end result was pretty predictable. (Thankfully, it's easily traded, which lead to some clans having them on a timeshare system.)** This was also slightly lessened due to the fact that ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' is kind of a special case due to its interface - if you were to get one, nobody else would see that fact unless you wanted them to. Far more like drama-causing loot now are the boss drops from [[BonusDungeon Hobopolis]], which have fairly good chances of dropping, but which only one single player per clan gets a chance of snagging per run. Most notably is Hodgman's Imaginary Hamster, which drops 100% of the time from the BonusBoss and doesn't automatically go to the player who killed him... if you beat the Dungeon in [[RunningGag 1100]] turns or less, a feat requiring literally almost perfect turn management and a character specifically designed to take down a NighInvulnerable BonusBoss in a single hit. And did we mention that each "raid" of Hobopolis has a [[GlobalCurrency meat cost]] of ''[[MoneySink one million]]'' [[MoneySink meat]]?*** Smart clans cooperate for hamster runs. With the new slime dungeon, smart clans also cooperate for slime prizes that can only be gotten by speed runs. There are also high-level players who *cough* rent themselves out as boss killers, and even entire clans that will let you walk in and take their loot ... for a price. Notably, most of the best Hobopolis items (and many slime items) are non-tradable, so you have to make at least a token venture into the clan's dungeon to get the item.** Oddly enough, the Hockey Stick, Crazy Bastard Sword, et all of the Ultra Rare drops have subsequently been replaced by gear obtainable in-game, from special one-time-only quests, or Items of the Month (the Brimstone Bludgeon far, far outweighs the CBS for Musc boost, and the Haiku Katana gives near-equivalent bonuses all-around and has way better abilities - both are one-handed weapons, too, while the LBS is 2, making them even ''better'' in comparison). IOTM's & FOTM's in particular are known for this, one being the V-Mask, which is generally considered a ridiculously high-powered item; others are the aforementioned Haiku Katana, Pilgrim Shield, any Tome, Libram, or Spellbook, and especially the familiars - Bandersnatch, He-Boulder, Llama Lama, Comma Chameleon, and Sandworm being some of the best.*** And with the introduction of the Juju mask, Vivala masks sank significantly in price. Hooray for power creep.*** Note that Items and Familiars of the Month can only enter the game [[BribingYourWayToVictory if someone "donates" money to the server fund]]. (They're tradeable, so it doesn't necessarily have to be the same person, but the price seems to hover around four million meat per ten US dollar donation.)***** As of June, 2012, they're now up to 10 million meat* In ''AceOnline'', the [[RareRandomDrop really good rare drops]] are greatly sought after. Several bosses, particularly the ones who drop the parts of the unique Boss Armors, are always being chased by players of both nations within minutes, and sometimes even within seconds, of their spawning. Whole long-and-nasty bouts of warring often break out over the control of maps with these bosses.** Other than that, the demand for more mundane rares, such as the Seraphim Bible and Gemetria Scripture (which are used to make [[InfinityPlusOneSword Legendary weapons and armor]]), which drop from most [[EliteMook Gold Mobs]], is there too, but at least ''they'' drop more often and are thus more accessible to casual players.** There are also hard-to-obtain minerals and alloys, like the much-sought-after Aimaam Edcanium and Shine Titanium, which sell for tens of thousands of SPI.** Somehow, someway, Episode 3 Part 2 decides to give this trope a giant middle finger with an unhealthy dose of BribingYourWayToVictory. The boss armors mentioned now have are available in the form of replica armors, available from the cash shop slot machine (each token relatively "cheap", and with 1-in-20 chances, it's much higher than boss drops). A big difference is that while the replica armors are inferior to the real armors, they are upgradeable (whereas the finished boss armors are not; unfinished boss armors are seldom useful except for Episode 3 ones), allowing massive doses of EliteTweak. Putting the real and customized replica Episode 2 armors side-by-side, chances are the pimped up replica armor will have better stats than the rare, real armor, which makes the real armors nothing more than less-than-useful collector's item.*** It is however worth mentioning that only Episode 2 boss armors get replicas. Episode 3 Vattallus armors don't (it is debatable which will be better, the pimped Episode 2 replicas or finished Episode 3 rares.)* ''[[VideoGame/SimCity Sim City 4 Deluxe]]'' manages to turn high-end commercial development and some rewards into this in the general game. Many modding communities have built mods, buildings, and other various programs to help make getting skyscrapers and rare rewards easier to achieve. Of course, being as chock full of [[SmallNameBigEgo egotism]] and [[StopHavingFunGuy snobbery]] that occurs in the modding community, the general person won't be able to get access to such things without wading through ego wars. Of course, had Maxis [[NintendoHard not made even the easy level of the game difficult as it is]], half of these problems wouldn't happen.* ''MapleStory'': Unless you're buying it off of other users [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts (for millions and millions of Mesos)]], chances are you'll be spending a good deal of time hunting monsters so you can FINALLY equip something over level 35.** And not just something. Most armor for every possible class can only be taken from monsters.*** This has mostly been rectified by a major update which greatly increased drop rates and a major update which added the ability to craft your own equipment easily.* Averted in GuildWars2, since all loot tables are personal. NinjaLooting is absolutely impossible : if you don't get the stuff you want, the only one to blame is the RNG.* VideoGame/{{Borderlands}} and VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}} do not have separate drops for its online mode. When Legendaries drop, especially very rare and powerful Legendaries, expect fireworks among a group. For example the Infinity Pistol is a reasonably good pistol statistically; decent damage with a fast fire rate but it also NEVER NEEDS AMMO. It has an estimated 0.07% drop rate from its boss although the boss can be called at any time. This boss is also ThatOneBoss to boot without the right gear.* Slightly averted in ''Videogame/DragonNest'', to get legendary equipment you need to enter weekly hardcore 8 man nests. but legendary equipment bind on pick up and have no way to be traded. [[note]]The higher the quality of the item, the higher the price for each upgrade and rarer the materials, this is why most people prefer to use +10 epic equipment even if they get +0 legendary[[/note]], L grade accessories on the other hand don't need to be upgraded and are tradeable.** You have a higher drop rate from bosses when you have more people in your party, so some guilds agree to give the somewhat rare items (like mounts[[note]]They only drop in level 40-50 nests, so there are no useful equipment to be gained anyway[[/note]]) to the party/guild leader for him to sell and the people in the party share the profit.* The Korean server of {{VideoGame/Elsword}} had a very interesting version of this. When the Dragon Knight avatar set came out, it was considered worthless since Avatars are mainly used for aesthetic value and not straight up power. Almost nobody got it even though it was a limited edition avatar set. The producers, in turn, decided to split the avatar in two versions: Darkside (The Original, Red one) and Abaddon (The Recolored, Blue one). The demand for the set increased, but not by much, until the producers said, one day before the release of the Abaddon version, that they'd make a new version of the hair part of the set as well, without a helmet. Suddenly, the demand for both versions of the set (Abaddon especially) skyrocketed. The helmetless abaddon version's price went beyond the in-game cap for market prices, forcing players to sell it by trade. By [[CrackIsCheaper 1.2 Billion ED, no less]]. It got so ridiculous that the producers had to make both versions available again in the cash shop for triple the original time to stabilize the price. [[CrackIsCheaper Crack is still cheaper, though.]]** This actually led to people exploiting an in-game bug that allowed you to transform a one-day-only version of the Darkside Set into a permanent version of the Abaddon set. Complete with the helmetless hair. People who abused this bug were banned for a month, or three years if they did anything with the set besides wearing it. And that's because of a screwup on the developer's part.** Something similar happened with the Archangel Set before Christmas of 2012. Since it was the very first avatar set to be released and was so damn old (And every avatar set is limited edition "never to return to the game-shop") it was pretty rare to see anyone with it. If you had it, chances said you weren't gonna sell it. Which caused any and all parts of the set to be ridiculously rare on the market and sell for double to triple the price of any other set at the time. Thankfully for anybody wanting the set, all Avatar Sets came back to the market on Christmas of 2012, putting the price back to "possible" status, instead of [[CrackIsCheaper "Jesus Christ who'd pay 600 Million for Wings?!"]]* In ''VideoGame/RuneScape'', the Lootshare and Coinshare systems are made to mitigate this. Lootshare distributes the dropped items to all players fairly evenly, and Coinshare converts most valuable drops into gold and distribute it exactly equally, but with a 5% gold deduction. If you don't have either on, the loot will go to the one who dealt the most damage. Since some untradeable or unique drops such as charms will be lost if either systems are active, there is still potential for LootDrama.** Played straight for the wand of treachery - after all, it is [[ShoutOut based on]] the [[Literature/HarryPotter Elder Wand]]. * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has all gear based loot regulated to treasure chests in dungeons. Rather than having the first person to open the chest getting the loot, everyone in the party has to roll a dice based on whether they "need" it or want it for "greed" (usually to sell it on the market). Usually, players that roll on need get higher priority over players who rolled for greed. The drama over who gets what loot still applies, considering that most loot are random and most of said loot can't be given away to other players.* In ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'', monster carves and gatherable items are localized; each player gets the full limit of items per gathering site or monster. This does lead to the occasional odd sight of, for example, a fellow player whacking their pickaxe at thin air because you already mined from that particular rock, but it's a small oversight compared to players fighting over who gets what.* Generally averted in ''VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies'', due to the rarest and most sought-after items - such as the Mandolorian Armour or the Jetpack - requiring significant amounts of coordination amongst group members (and for those members to have other loot already on their person in order to craft the item in question). However, there were a few uber-rares that could still cause this strife.* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline'' had some drops which were so incredibly rare, seeing even one drop ''ever'' was considered a major accomplishment. Some of the worst offenders had loot drops that had a less than 1-in-100000 chance to drop off an enemy that only spawned less than half-a-dozen times in a single dungeon. Not helping matters were that [[PowerEqualsRarity many of these items were the most powerful weapons in the game.]] Needless to say, the appearance of these rares could cause major strife in a party.

----!!Non-VideoGame Examples:

* In ''TheGuild'', a web series about people who play an MMORPG together, the group finds a rare item. Both Tink and Clara want it, and are engaged in bartering for it, [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom when Clara's children unplug her modem]], allowing Tink to win the item(Vork's thinking is that Clara obviously didn't want it, or she would have said so). Clara gets upset, and sets up a secondary account to PK the guild leader's character over and over out of revenge in secret. When it's eventually revealed that she was the one who kept killing him, it caused a temporary rift among the guildmembers.* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', there were several instances of PlayerKilling over rare drops and one episode revolved around a crooked guild trying to extort a rare item from a lower-level player.* Parodied in ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' when a ''WorldOfWarcraft'' style [[MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame MMORPG]] has a special ability-boosting hat that a raid's boss [[RareRandomDrop only drops once every ten raids]]. When [[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=080915 Torg gets the hat]] his first time playing the raid, other players who have done it 50 times without getting the hat are ''pissed''.** The ExpansionPack almost immediately [[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=080916 makes this achievement a joke, however]].* ''TheBigBangTheory'' provides two examples:** The "Sword of Azeroth" rare drop in their WorldOfWarcraft game, which one of the players [[NinjaLooting steals only so he can sell on eBay.]] Which is immediately bought by another member of the group.** The original [[LordOfTheRings One Ring]] movie prop which the four main characters greedily fight for, replaying the corruption of Sméagol.* ''NerfNow'' parodies this trope (along with RandomlyDrops) in a strip imagining ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' to be an MMORPG: the rest of the team have to hold back a visibly angry Heavy Weapons Gal when the server randomly allocates an item beneficial to her class to the Sniper instead.** The BLU Engie-tan deliberately invokes this trope [[http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/865 in the Rainy Day arc]]. Acting as Gamemaster for a tabletop RPG, after her ultra-powerful end boss (and [[SelfInsertFic in-game avatar]]) was trounced by a lucky critical hit from the RED team, she got her revenge by revealing that the loot they were after was a fancy, gem-encrusted hat... but there was only one of them. The party quickly turns on itself in a self-destructive bloodbath over who gets the loot.